Beer and Theology
by Bryon Nightshade
Summary: Short fluff-fic, in which a monk and a priestess... agree to disagree, mostly.


Once, the priestess counted carefully. Twice. Thrice.

She'd heard that pandaren were supposed to be able to hold their liquor, and that those who tried to keep up with them usually wound up unconscious just as the pandaren were warming up. The two groaning dwarves at a nearby table seemed to testify to this. But the monk across from her had consumed enough to _kill_ the priestess three times over.

Running a hand through prematurely silver hair, Majel found herself unable to contain the question. "Are you drunk yet or what?"

"Let me answer your question with another question," her companion replied. "Are you ever going to drink your drinks, or will I have to keep drinking them for you?"

Majel's mouth twitched. "That doesn't actually answer my question at all."

The monk shrugged. Heavy-lidded but clever green eyes regarded the priestess. "It's the pandaren way."

"I've been to Pandaria. Don't give me that."

Laterra laughed, her whole generous frame moving with the eruption. "See, this is exactly why I say you need to drink some of these. You're wound way too tight. This is a day of celebration!"

Majel sighed. "I've never been one for celebration. Not like other people celebrate, anyway."

"You definitely need some of these, then." Laterra tilted her latest mug back until it was nearly vertical, then slammed it back on to their table. "Ah! I never thought I would go for an import, but these dwarven ales rival anything the Stormstouts could produce." She leaned forward confidentially, and spoke in private tones but with public volume. "Of course, if you tell anyone I said that, I will be forced to deny everything."

Yet another wave of awkwardness washed through Majel. "I don't drink nearly often enough to compare notes with you. It's a language I can't speak. Beer just isn't my thing."

"Wine, then?"

"Sort of. I prefer it to beer, anyway."

"What's your favorite?" Laterra asked shrewdly.

Majel looked away instead of answering.

Laterra laughed again. "You don't have to drink to celebrate," she allowed, "but it sure makes things easier."

"I'll take your word for it," Majel said, voice carefully neutral. "But people celebrate in different ways."

"Oh?" said Laterra interestedly. "Like how?"

"Usually at times like this I would go with… or, well, chaperone… a warrior named Barrette. She would have suplexed someone through a table by now. That was celebrating for her."

Laterra blinked. "She was a professional fighter, and she celebrated her time off by fighting?"

"Low-stakes fistfights are a little different than true battle. That's what she said, anyway." Majel shrugged. "It worked for her. She was always in a better mood afterwards, even when she had to pay for the furniture."

"Where is she now?"

"Hanging with the Valarjar. They're her kind of people."

Laterra nodded sagely. "Good for her."

"The commander celebrates by sleeping," Majel went on. "Light knows he needs it, with the schedule he keeps. And I knew a druid who always ended up in the stables after a night like this. He let people say that he wandered in there while drunk, but I always suspected that was a cover."

"For what?"

Majel daintily sipped from a small glass of water.

"You got upset when I didn't answer how you liked," Laterra said with only mild accusation. "But you still haven't told me how you celebrate."

She sighed. "I told you, I don't really celebrate."

Laterra was flabbergasted. "Why not?"

"Because there's always something else on the horizon," Majel replied. "It seems like any minute now a hidden cult will strike, or portals will tear through the veil of reality, or some eldritch monstrosity will rise. I don't think I've ever gone this long without having to fend off bloodthirsty orcs—I'm way overdue. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there are always more orcs."

"Pah, that's all the more reason to celebrate!" said Laterra dismissively. "If you don't get many breaks, it means you have to make the most of the breaks you get."

"If you say so. It just grinds on me, you know? How there's always the next thing, and the next."

Laterra was unimpressed. "So you fight all the time. That doesn't mean you never get anywhere. We just came back from another world. We just took war to the ultimate bad guys and clobbered them all. You brought your 'Light' to that dark place. That's amazing! That is worth celebrating, no matter what comes next."

"'My' Light?" said Majel keenly, mimicking the monk's scare quotes to avoid her scarily good point.

"What?" said Laterra, cocking her head.

Majel huffed. "See, this has always bothered me. You're a monk, aren't you? I've known lots of other monks across Azeroth. I've even trained with some of them. But you pandaren monks are different. In all my travels across Pandaria, I never got an inkling of what you actually believe."

Laterra blinked, uncomprehending.

"What is your theology?"

"Ahhh… I see. Our orders don't come with a… a religion, as you understand it. Some of us have religious beliefs, but that's a separate thing. Being a monk isn't subscribing to a particular code of faith. It's a discipline."

Majel arched an eyebrow. "This…" she gestured at the vast array of empty mugs and tankards, "…is discipline?"

"Well," said Laterra with a crooked, lazy grin, "it's a _kind_ of discipline."

Majel rolled her eyes.

"Really," the monk insisted. "Body control, tranquility, inner focus, balance… those are things that can serve any belief system."

"So what's yours? What do you believe?"

"I believe…" the pandaren rapped on the table. "…that I will order more drinks."

Majel put her face in her palm.

"And I believe," Laterra prodded, "that you will drink this round with me."

"No."

"Agh! I am enduring a crisis of faith!" She clutched her hands over her heart as if stricken. She recovered quickly. "Well, there's still time."

The drinks arrived. Laterra quickly took a slug of hers. Majel's remained on the table, untouched.

Laterra slammed her tankard on the table, causing some beer to slosh out. She let out a potent exhale, wiped her mouth, and gestured carelessly. "You know, maybe you'd have hands free to drink if you weren't clutching your weapon still."

Majel shifted self-consciously. The monk's statement wasn't totally true. Majel's staff was resting against her shoulder. Neither of her hands was on it, but it was undoubtedly in contact with her. Even now, while idle, the crystal in its head was glowing.

"I can't leave it alone," she said. "Without someone regulating it, it tends to… explode."

"You can't tell me no one ever stored it safely," Laterra countered—her voice, which moments ago had been a sloppy half-drunk drawl, had turned precise. "Especially not with the company we keep. Does it need you, I wonder? Or do you need it?"

Luckily there was a way to evade the question. "How do you _do_ that?" Majel asked.

"Do what?"

"I swear you're less drunk now than you were before this newest beer," Majel said, frustrated.

"You're not wrong," Laterra said slyly.

"What's that?"

"Watch." The pandaren—whose appetite seemed endless—took another enormous swig (Majel was certain that if she consumed the same amount she'd immediately lose feeling in her fingers). She held up one hand, which was wavering ever so slightly, just as her eyes were dilated and eyelids heavy. Then, she stilled. Her expression sharpened. Her hand froze in place.

"Detox," Laterra concluded triumphantly. "Monks learn a high level of body control early on in our training. It allows us to purge poisons in a matter of moments. It's very convenient!" she concluded with a chortle.

"I bet," said Majel measuredly.

"Being drunk is no fun," Laterra went on, immune to the priest's attitude. "You make a mess of things, and you don't even remember the fun you have. But _getting_ drunk, that's delightful. That sensation of warmth, of loosening, of relaxing… such a wonderful feeling. I could get drunk a dozen times a night."

"And have, apparently."

"No doubt about that." The monk picked up the second tankard and offered it to Majel. "Well? Why don't you try it?"

She patted the staff again. "I have to maintain my discipline or things get explodey."

"Ha! I knew it was that you needed the staff."

Majel flushed.

"You're looking for reasons not to indulge," Laterra went on with relish. "And the staff is convenient for that purpose. Well, we can make the best of things. It's more for me." She pointed at the tankard still on the table. "May I…?"

Majel nodded curtly.

Grinning, the pandaren brought the tankard over in front of her. She did this, coincidentally, as the tavern wench came around. "You're going to have to pay before I let you have any more," she said as she loaded the empty containers onto her tray.

"Sure, sure," said Laterra affably. She brought up a pouch and looked into it—then squinted and looked harder. She shot Majel a sideways glance. "Are you going to pay for yours?"

"My what?" Majel replied crossly. "I haven't had any."

Shrugging, the monk emptied her money pouch into a hand and pressed most of its contents onto the wench's tray. The wench looked over it—her face scrunching in calculation—before she nodded. "Another round, then?"

"In a minute," Laterra said.

"Suit yourself," the wench said, and strolled away.

"Was that… the reward money?" Majel asked suspiciously. "The bounty we received for our work on Argus?"

Laterra gave a dismissive gesture. "Money comes and money goes." The last few lonely coins went back into her money pouch. There were few enough that they didn't clink.

"Forgive me for presuming, but I'm guessing you don't have many more coins banked."

"Ha! It's a fool who trusts goblins with their gold."

Majel's eyes narrowed. "The Bank of Stormwind is not goblin-run, and very reputable."

"Is it?" the monk replied idly.

"That's a lot of money you've… consumed," Majel said, gesturing to where the tankards had been.

Laterra grinned. "The fewer your possessions, the fewer your worries." She pointed at Majel's hair, turned silver long before its time. "You seem to bear the truth of that."

The priestess gripped her staff—less to control it than to have something to hold. "That's a difference between you and me," she said, more quietly. "A big difference. The thing is… if I thought like you, if I acted like you… I wouldn't have survived childhood."

Laterra suddenly seemed like she'd just used Detox.

"Stormwind was destroyed when I was very young," Majel went on. "We were refugees at first, and even after we were able to return we had to rebuild from nothing. It was backbreaking work, even for the children—because if we didn't scrape and scrabble, if we didn't save and ration, if we didn't make the most of every copper and grain… there wouldn't be a Stormwind today. Because we all would have starved."

"That's a harsh story," said Laterra, "but that's all the more reason to celebrate in times of plenty. You don't have to scrape and scrabble any more. Why don't you act like it?"

"It's like I said earlier," Majel said, coming into her own now. "There's always something more on the horizon. There's always the next thing. Any resources we gather are resources we hoard to throw at the next problem. And there will be a next problem. You can count on it. On this world, anyway."

"This world does seem to have more than its fair share of issues," Laterra said with a frown.

"A life of… dissipation…" for the first time a hint of judgement entered her voice, "…is alien to me."

"So," Laterra said slowly, "you said you've been to Pandaria. Well, I've also been to Stormwind. Did you know?"

"Everyone ends up there sooner or later."

"True. It's an interesting place, Stormwind. I admit it seems a bit strange to someone who was raised with Pandaren sensibilities, but I can appreciate what people see in it. The Valley of Heroes, for example! Titanic statues of great heroes long-lost, and some newly rediscovered! It's a grand entrance, to be sure."

Laterra cocked her head and gave Majel a too-shrewd look. "What do you think of those decorations of your homeland? You know—the ones that were made as part of rebuilding Stormwind… the rebuilding effort that took every copper and grain you could scrape and save."

Majel's breathing became very, even artificially, even.

"They look good, don't they?" continued Laterra. "I can't help but think that those resources could have been spent preparing for the next big danger… but someone chose to erect statues instead. Interesting choice, don't you think?"

One more even breath. "I could argue that the inspiration of our heroes—remembering their example, honoring their memories—is a preparation of its own. But it's easier, more defensible, to say that… not everyone thinks like me."

"Hear hear," said Laterra. "More power to them. And you, too, I suppose."

Majel's brow furrowed.

"That's just it, though. Your own people," Laterra went on, "your leaders—your kings and nobles—they all see value in some celebration, and they're willing to put the public treasury to that end, even when the public treasury has all these other burdens on it."

"For a good period of time, the public treasury was being manipulated by a black dragon," Majel said with a quiet bite.

"I especially like the new statue of Varian," Laterra casually riposted.

Majel stewed.

"Were all these people," Laterra said with an infuriating sort of friendly mercilessness, " _wrong_ , do you think? Were they mistaken to celebrate? And to use Stormwind's resources to do it?"

"I wouldn't say that," Majel said with forced calm.

"So if they weren't wrong," the monk said, leaning forward, "then _I believe_ you wouldn't be wrong, either." With that, she slid the only full tankard back towards Majel's side of the table.

"That's a very small belief."

"But sincerely felt and acted upon, which rates it rather high as these things go. So? Will you celebrate with me?"

A small smile cracked Majel's stoicism. "Don't you see? I am celebrating."

Laterra's eyes flitted down to the tankard, as if to check it was still full. "You could have fooled me."

"I told you at the start: people celebrate in different ways. I wasn't saying that as a dodge. Let me tell you how I celebrate. _I watch other people celebrate._ "

Laterra's eyebrows rose.

"I ask what they're thinking and what they're doing. I talk with them. And out of that, I reinforce the knowledge that, well… people are weird, in so many ways. Weird, and different, and strange, and wonderful. That is why I add one belief to my faith in the Light: that the people of this world, despite being so strange- maybe because they're so strange- are worth fighting for."

All around them the crowd roared in merry celebration. White noise enveloped them.

At last the monk surrendered. "I'll drink to that," she said. The mug was halfway to her lips before she paused. "That is… unless you want this."

"It's all yours," said Majel graciously.

The monk took a drink. By the time the tankard cleared her line of sight, the priestess had left the table.


End file.
